Part of the debate – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 1:15 pm on 12 November 2001.
The current work on evaluating health needs is aimed at ensuring that we see all the issues to do with need, management, efficiency and effectiveness being dealt with together — as they must be. The Executive, the House and the Health, Social Services and Public Safety Committee need to know more fully what should be done on a range of difficult and complicated issues that affect the Health Service in many ways. That is the approach we are taking. The Executive are undertaking these evaluations precisely because we attach such importance to health services and because the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is as determined as anyone on this issue. We hope to proceed early next year with the benefit of those evaluations.